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At what freq. does sound become non-directional?

Greetings all,
I've got monitors sitting on matching woofer bases. The Freq. response on the monitors is 40hz-20khz and on the woofer bases it is 30-160hz. I'm now using a Paradigm X30 crossover and bi-amped. I'm considering changing to a stereo crossover or adding another X30. Am I overly concerned since at some point the sound is "non-directional"? or am I missing part of the music because of the X30 being mono only on the low end, and passing the signal only as a mix-mono identically to each woofer base? Your comments and suggestions are appreciated.
Happy Listening!
myraj
elgordo
530 posts
 
I've heard bass is non-directional below 60 Hz, 100 Hz, 160Hz. Don't believe it. There is no bass like stereo bass. Period.
subaruguru
1,375 posts
 
It's not the directionality of the soundwave (which will vary with dimensions of walls, baffles, distances to boundaries, etc. ad nauseum!), but the issues re proper bass-loading in your room. Best results are usually obtained with multiple woofer locations, so that you have some chance of balancing and averaging out room nodes.
The human ear, however, has trouble discerning direction below 100-150Hz, right? OTOH there may be enough harmonic overtones and/or distortion artifacts, or even noise contributants that are indeed very discernable due to their higher frequencies. It's not that low bass is or isn't directional, it's that you can't perceive it as such without
higher frequency cues.
ezmeralda11
303 posts
 
You really will have to use your ears alot on this one. THX standard is 80hz and most crossovers range from 40hz to low 100hz+. If your room is 70feet wide, you'll hear stereo bass at any frequency, since the length of even deepest soundwaves is less than all the boundaries. You'll have to compensate for the room gain and watch the overlap throughout the crossover region to get as smooth a response possible
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